Do you want to take Wake Tech courses while still in high school and get both college and high school credits? If you said “yes,” the answer may be Wake Tech’s Career and College Promise (CCP) program, which allows you to do just that. 

Wake Tech’s CCP program allows its students to take real college courses taught by college professors to earn credits for both high school and college.  

“CCP stands for Career and College Promise. That is a dual enrollment program that is offered statewide. But in Wake County, we partner with Wake Technical Community College to offer CCP courses,” said Jasmine Pearson, Dean of Students and CCP Coordinator of Athens Drive.

These courses allow students to jump-start their college career in a way a high school cannot provide. This is a different approach for students to challenge themselves outside of the high school setting in an entirely new environment. 

“CCP courses are available to all high school students at Athens … it is a great opportunity to take some courses that can help you if you’re interested in pursuing a trade,” said Pearson. 

On top of helping students enter a trade, the program is also great for students planning to go on to a four-year college after high school.

“If it’s in the college transfer pathway, those courses will then move with them to the university of their choice. And a lot of the credits also offer dual enrollment for the high school. So you can either get credit for like a core class, or you get credit for an elective on your high school transcript,” said Pearson. 

These CCP courses provide a great opportunity for student’s future in college; however, they also benefit students while they remain in high school. 

“Most of the time students are interested in that because you might be able to get a credit that’s weighted like an AP [Advanced Placement] course would be weighted here,” said Pearson “and students have a lot of interest in pursuing that. So it’s a great opportunity for students to pursue.”

The main factor that separates dual enrollment courses from AP classes is the change of environment, as dual enrollment is not a simulated college course, but the real thing. 

“I do online classes so I find it pretty easy to work around. It’s very flexible being online which is the only thing that I could have done, and the teachers are pretty helpful and ask if I need help with anything. On top of that the workload is pretty small and reasonable,” said Luke Rutheny, Junior at Athens Drive.

On the other hand, taking these courses is also a great economic opportunity as it helps students save money down the road. The goal of Wake Tech’s CCP program is to prepare students for their future college years, but the program also reduces the cost of getting a college degree (not just a college transfer program) but also a Career Technical Education (CTE) diploma. 

“So the great thing about CCP is that it is tuition-free to Wake County high school students,” said Pearson. “So the tuition that would be associated with each of those classes is covered by Wake County Public Schools, so students that are attending Athens or attending any Wake County High School don’t have to pay the associated tuition costs with those courses.”

Tuition is a large amount of the costs associated with college; however, there are sadly several other expenses that come with dual enrollment.

“There might be … small fees; you might have to pay for books, but Wake Tech has a great program to assist students with paying for books as well. So it limits the financial obligation that a family would have, which is great because that’s less money than the student has to spend if you’re looking at going to a four-year university,” said Pearson. 

Wake Tech CCP offers several programs and courses; however, many students don’t know where to start. This program is not an Advanced Placement (AP) course, but it is signing up for early college. 

“When you’re a high school student, you’re still very much used to kind of having a safety net of all these adults in your school building, that are working with you to make sure that you’re on track and target for what you need and what you’re doing,” said Pearson.

High school has more hands-on support for their students than colleges typically do; however, college on the other hand no longer has that safety net. 

“One of the things I think students have difficulty with when they transition into CCP is that even though it’s a program that’s offered for high school students, they treat our high school students like they’re college students,” said Pearson. “So they still have expectations as if you were a college student with an adult kind of navigating things on your own.”

One of the most difficult parts of college is needing more direct support than you would have in high school and being responsible for reaching out all for yourself. 

“The professor is not going to reach out to you to say ‘Hey, I noticed that you aren’t doing so well, right?’ Like, you’re going to have to be responsible for seeking out help seeking out tutoring, go into their office hours, you have to be proactive and communicating with the professor,” said Pearson.

Unlike high school, college is an entirely different environment as it enters people into adult learning, leaving way more of the responsibility on the students. This, sadly, causes many students aspiring to enter Wake Tech’s dual enrollment program to back out and wait for college. 

“Some students struggle with that level of independence. And it can [be hard to juggle that], plus your courses at Athens. And I think sometimes students aren’t always prepared for that,” said Pearson.